


Wacky Roommates

by idinathoreau



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Deleted Scenes, Female Friendship, Healing, Roommates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-08 20:57:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7773106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idinathoreau/pseuds/idinathoreau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"...and come home to a wacky roommate..." Scenes that must have been missing from episodes starring Peridot and/or Lapis. Begins after "Too Short to Ride" and follows canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Too Cool to Play

**Author's Note:**

> A collection of short drabbles about Peridot and Lapis interacting as roommates and building trust in each other. Mostly just "extra scenes" tacked on to the end of episode canon.

Lapis closed her eyes, sighing contentedly into her solitude. This is what she had been imagining when Steven said she could stay here on Earth. Peace and quiet. Space and time to let all the bad thoughts and unsettling desires in her head drift out and settle…

“Lazuliiii!!!” Hey Lazuli!”

Lapis groaned.

“LAAAAAZZZUUUULLLIIIII!!!” The entire silo seemed to shake from the force of her companion’s yell. Something heavy-sounding crashed to the ground. “Whoops!”

Lapis peered over the edge of the silo, eyes narrowed at her “roommate” as Steven (and increasingly, said Gem herself) had been referring to Peridot. To her dismay, Peridot was alone and she was beckoning her over to the barn.

Lapis spread her wings, already resigned to a conversation. Ignoring Peridot only made the smaller Gem try harder.

Peridot beamed as the blue Gem swooped down to the ground beside her. “Hi Lazuli!” She said cheerfully.

Lapis folded her wings away and crossed her arms. “You can call me Lapis you know…” She muttered but her roommate was practically bouncing with excitement. 

“Lazuli! Look, Look!”

The tiny Gem was clutching some kind of humanoid toy to her chest that was nearly the size of her. A human electronic device floated at her elbow.

Peridot grinned at her. “Noticing anything…different?”

“Ummm…” Lapis looked her up and down several times, the toy catching her attention. “…Steven gave us another roommate?” She guessed.

Peridot hugged the thing tightly. “Well, yes. But there’s something else!”

She carefully placed her friend on the ground, then turned back to Lapis with her eyes shining.  
“Look! Watch!” She focused intently on a pile of metal cans in a heap alongside the barn, throwing both of her hands towards them. Nothing happened.

Peridot’s smile slipped slightly. “Wait…hold on…I can control metal!” She shifted her stance and tried again. Not a single can moved. 

Lapis raised an eyebrow.

Peridot chuckled self-consciously. “Well…” She pointed at the rectangle floating at her elbow. “I can do this pretty easily.” She threw a glance over her shoulder. “And I moved that before you got down here…”

Lapis noticed that the old “car” — as Steven called it — was now over on its side, as if someone had deliberately tipped it over.

“So waddaya think? Isn’t it…snazzy? ‘Ay, Lazuli?” She grinned hugely, much like she had when she’d been trying to convince Lapis she really had changed. Lapis had to admit, when she first met “Peridot Facet 2F5L Cut 5XG”, she’d never imagined her speaking like this.

Lapis just shrugged. “All Peridots can do that.”

Her roommate’s face crumpled instantly. “They can?”

Lapis nodded. “Yeah.” She said drily but with little bite.

Peridot caught the rectangle from the air, holding it uneasily in her hand. “But…but I never saw one do it on Homeworld…” Her shoulders were scrunching up.

Lapis sighed, unhappy thoughts assaulting her. “Homeworld changed a lot. They probably just didn’t tell you that you were capable of this.” Her gaze darkened. “Homeworld lied about a lot of things.”

Peridot scratched the back of her head, remembering the records that had falsely reported the absence of Gems on Earth. “Yeah…” She agreed. “They did.”

Silence descended for a moment, Peridot looking like she wanted to go crawl off on her own. Even though Lapis valued those moments when Peridot chose not to pester her, she didn’t feel like she should leave their conversation at that. “…I’ve never heard of an Era 2 Peridot discovering that ability though.” She offered.

Apparently that had been the right thing to say. Peridot’s grin returned with a vengeance. “neheehe. Yeah, I almost didn’t. But then Amethyst gave me this talk about focusing on what I could do…” Peridot blushed deeply, “…and tried to destroy my only piece of tech and it just kinda…burst out of me.”

Lapis paused, an unexpected sense of camaraderie with Peridot stealing past her careful block on her emotions. In spite of herself, she couldn’t help a small warm feeling starting in her chest. She said nothing, letting Peridot continue. 

The green Gem was flexing her fingers carefully. “It’s kind of like…an enormous, complicated array of strings connecting me to the metal…and how I move…” A pipe shifted and rolled off the rack alongside the barn with a clang. Peridot jumped in surprise. “…the metal responds…”

“Controlling water is similar.”

“Huh?”

Lapis held out her hand. “It’s all in your head. But you’re trying to force it out anyway you can.” She held her hand out to the pool. Immediately, a large column of water rose up, straight and flawless. “You just have to get out of your head and feel it.”

“Okay…” Peridot raised her hands toward the pipes. “FEEEEELLLL it.” She closed her eyes and grunted. The pipes didn’t move. But the car lifted effortlessly into the air. 

“Nice.” Lapis said, nodding at the hovering vehicle. 

Peridot cracked open her eyes, seeming surprised that the car was float. 

“Uhh yes! I meant to do that…” She took a step back and the car rose up even higher. “Now…let’s see if I can…GAHH!!” 

Something had found its way under her foot, something small and round and unstable, sending the less-than-graceful Peridot tumbling to the ground. 

Above their heads, the car responded accordingly. But instead of crashing down on top of them, it flung itself forward…right into the attic of the barn.

Peridot and Lapis stared at it with wide eyes, expecting that it would fall or the entire barn would crumble to bits from such an assault. But the truck seemed to have wedged itself into the structure quite comfortably and sat at a slight angle, trunk bed sticking out.

They exchanged looks.

Lapis put a hand over her mouth but she couldn’t contain the snort. Her mirth spilled over, morphing into full-fledged belly-shaking laughter that had her doubling over.   
Peridot was blushing a deep blue but she slowly loosened up, her own breathy laughter hesitantly joining Lapis’. 

“I like it.” Lapis declared. “Let’s keep it.”


	2. No Longer Alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my meep morp. This is a chapter about the events after "Alone at Sea." It reminds me of the time I watched "Alone at Sea."

Peridot twisted her foot, the metal gear clanking and turning in response. 

“Ah ha! Gotcha!” Her tongue poking out between her lips, she turned her foot in a circle slowly. The gears responded, a complex series of ropes slowly tightening and lifting the prone form of the Earth silo into an upright position. “Carefully…just a little further…”

The familiar sound of water and wind rushing by alerted her to the presence of her roommate. Locking the gear in place, she rushed out of the barn.

At first she couldn’t see her but then she heard a sigh from above her. Lapis Lazuli had just touched down on the roof of the barn, sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest. 

“Lapis!” Peridot called, waving. “You’re back! I rigged up a simplistic leverage device so we can raise the silo into the hole without a repeat of the truck! If you could just…” She paused, noticing the dark shadow cast over her roommate’s eyes. Peridot frowned. After being on Earth for nearly a year, she had gotten very good at picking up on emotions. Lapis was one of the hardest Gems she’d ever tried to understand on this planet (apart from Garnet who still eluded her…) but Peridot liked to think she was getting better at the subtle shifts in the blue Gem’s eyes and shoulders that often indicated her changing mood. The dark clouds in the sky overhead that hadn’t been there a second ago was also a big tip off.

Peridot circled around to the back of the barn, where she’d set up a ladder to allow for better roof access. This wasn’t the first time she’d had to chase the blue Gem down. Darn Lapis Lazulis and their need to be up high…Crawling carefully across the steep roof, she slid down a safe distance from her roommate, mirroring her position. “You okay?” Peridot asked quietly. 

“Yeah.”Lapis spoke into her knees, keeping her head down.

“How was hanging out with Steven?” Peridot asked, wondering how talkative she could encourage Lazuli to be tonight. Lapis was usually fine after spending time with Steven. Steven was the only one who could get her to smile most days. Not that Peridot hadn’t been trying since the truck incident.

Lapis shifted slightly. “Fine.” She mumbled.

“Where did he take you?”

“On a boat.”

Peridot frowned in thought. “A boat? Oh! Right, a buoyant water-vessel. Why would he do that?”

Lapis pressed her eyes into her knees, her whole body tightening. “He wanted me to be comfortable with the ocean again.”

“Oh. So did you…?”

Lapis raised her head. “She was there…”

“Who was…oh.” Peridot mentally kicked herself for not realizing it sooner. Jasper was still a sensitive subject around the barn, so much so that Peridot had forsaken even uttering the name of the orange Gem in casual conversation. The last time she’d done that, Lapis had blasted the silo out of the ground with little warning. Thankfully, her ingenious engineering skills had figured out a simple way to attach it to the barn and that problem was solved.

But apparently the wound was still too fresh. Peridot couldn’t imagine seeing Jasper again had done any good for Lapis.

She stretched out an uncertain hand to pat Lapis on the back. “You…wanna talk about it?”

Lapis turned to her, surprised. “Huh?”

Peridot shrugged. “Steven does it all the time. I…I know I’m not exactly Steven but I’ve gotten a lot better at listening…” Her hand hovered uncertainly over Lapis’ back.

Lapis chuckled but there was no pleasure in it. “Peridot I…I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to talk about it. Not even to Steven.” She curled in on herself even further. “Especially not to Steven…he shouldn’t have to know what that was like…Being fused liked that for so long was…incredible. And terrible. It’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life…” She looked up, gazing out over the countryside that was slowly being painted the bright colors of fall. “I just wish…I wish I had some way to get it out without…talking about it. You know?”

The wind had picked up slightly and several drops of rain had started to fall. Peridot gazed out across the fields, thinking about a time when she had been struggling to express herself…and a small Earth device had helped. 

“Lapis…can I…show you something?”

The blue Gem looked up. “Oookkay?”

Peridot smiled and stood. “It’s in the barn…” She offered Lapis her hand.

To her surprise, Lapis took her under the arms without hesitation and gently flew them down. 

“WHOA!! errrr. Thanks.” Peridot stuttered, head still spinning a bit from the act of flying. She led the way into the barn, poking around until she found the box she had been looking for. With a wave of her finger, she extracted a small Earth noise-maker (a harmonica Steven had called this) and let it hover near her mouth.

“What is this?” Lapis asked, completely lost.

“It’s a kind of Earth noise-maker. Humans use it to make…music. Steven showed it to me back when we were working on the drill.” She took the harmonica from the air.

Lapis seemed interested. “How does it work?”

“It’s a fairly simple scale utilizing harmonic sounds to create something pleasurable sounding. Steven told me to write a song about whatever I was thinking and it helped me connect with the others.”

Lapis was silent but she watched Peridot with interest. 

Peridot raised the instrument to her lips and took a deep breath. She blew hard, producing a sour-sounding blast of noise. 

Lapis covered her ears, wincing as Peridot tried to coax anything musical out of the harmonica. “I don’t think ‘music’ is going to work for me…” She said as Peridot finally ran out of breath.

But Peridot wasn’t going to give up. “Maybe we could try something else? Music…gah!” She gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. “Music without sounds!!” She let the harmonic clatter to the ground and dove into the mess of boxes next to her silo-lifting rigging. 

“A ha!” She extracted several sheets of the primitive data-recording material and the colored wax pens from a deeply-buried box. “Steven showed me this once! When we made you that card!”

Pinching the pen awkwardly between her touch-stumps, she moved it across the sheet. A line of green appeared. Grinning, she held it up for Lapis’ inspection.

“Music…with things!” She declared.

Her roommated raised an eyebrow but her arms had come uncrossed slightly. “What do we call that?”

Peridot turned her sheet around to stare at the green blob she had etched on the paper. “Steven had a name for it…uh…” She grinned sheepishly. “I cant remember what it was…”

Lapis shrugged. “…meep morp?” She offered. 

Peridot raised an eyebrow. “Yeah…sure.” It wasn’t what Steven had called it. But then again, this wasn’t what Steven had shown her. This was theirs. “Why don’t you try?”

She offered Lapis her choice of the colored wax pens, taking her green-marked data-recorder and marker aside. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, she moved the pen around some more, trying to make an accurate rendering of herself. It was harder than Steven had made it look.

Sometime later, Peridot glanced over at Lapis. The blue gem was concentrating fiercely as she tried manipulating the “cray-on” across the fibrous data-recorder. But her tongue was poking out of the corner of her mouth and there was just a hint of light in her eyes.

Lapis glanced up, catching sight of Peridot peering at her work. They were both silent for a moment, an unspoken challenge hanging in the air. “What do you think?” The blue Gem finally asked, holding the sheet up for Peridot’s inspection.

Peridot considered the mess of dark lines and incoherent colors on the data-recorder. It didn’t look like anything functional. It was merely feelings splayed across a medium, captured by Lapis’ motions. It was dark and foreboding and somewhat unpleasant to look at. Her chest glowed at the thought that Lapis was trusting her with this. Only her. 

She offered Lapis her best gentle smile. “I think it’s great meep morp.”


	3. Hit the Slow Lane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been awhile! Jumping back a bit, here’s a chapter post “Hit the Diamond” (aka the gayest thing on TV before “It’s Over Isn’t It” and “Last One Out of Beach City”). The rest of this probably won’t be in chronological order, mostly because I’m too lazy to shift chapters around.

Steven, Amethyst, Garnet and Pearl had all finally left (Garnet with a particularly troubling knowing look at her) so for the first time since they had first come to Earth, Peridot and Lapis were finally alone.

Lapis was removing the bits of human appearance enhancers she had donned for the baseball game against the Homeworld Rubys. Peridot was watching, her fingers fidgeting as she wondered if she should speak or not.

Lapis pulled off the “shirt” she had been wearing, her form immediately calling back her typical dress.

Peridot watched her, fidgeting with her hands. 

“Are you just going to stand there all night?”

Peridot jumped. “I, uh…um…I wasn’t sure…” Lapis wasn’t facing her but Peridot could see her arms folded tightly around her. 

Like they had been so often on the ship.

Peridot swallowed hard, trying not to think about that. It was in the past. Everything was different now…not that that argument had worked very well before.

Lapis turned to her, her voice dry. “Well?” She seemed to have an affinity for the Earth “bat”. She was still holding it. The visual was rather terrifying.

“I…uh…” Peridot wished she still had her recorder right now. It would be so much easier to just record her thoughts and play them, instead of having to think of something on the fly like this. 

“I wanted to uh…thank you…”

“For what?”

Peridot cleared her throat and straightened up. “For protecting me from the Homeworld patrol. And for…playing baseball for me.”

Lapis scoffed softly. “I didn’t play for you. I played because Steven asked me to.”

“Oh…right…”

Peridot fell silent again, watching as Lapis placed the appearance modifiers and bat she had used for the game in a corner of the barn. Something occurred to her as Lapis gazed out of the half-covered hole in the side of the barn.

“But…then…” Peridot cleared her throat, her voice slightly squeaky as she spoke. “why did you protect me from the ship?” She asked. 

Lapis didn’t look at her. “Because I decided to give you a chance.” She said flatly. 

Peridot didn’t know how to respond to that. “Wow…thanks.” That felt right.

Lapis was silent, standing moodily in the barn with her arms folded, mirroring their encounter the previous morning.

“…do…do you still want me to leave?” Peridot finally asked. Between the unexpected arrival of the Rubys and the baseball game, she hadn’t had a chance to ask Lapis for clarification.

While she didn’t cherish the thought of leaving her new home, she was willing to make that sacrifice for Lapis. She had been on Earth long enough to be moderately comfortable on the planet. Lazuli had only just settled in here after being trapped under the ocean for months. She needed the solitude and the space more than Peridot did.

Besides…she could always stay in Steven’s bathroom...again. She shuddered. 

Lapis shrugged. “I guess you can stay…” She muttered, her cheeks coloring with a slight blush.

Peridot perked up. “R…really? You’re sure you’re okay with me…being here? Because I don’t have to be! I…”

“Peridot.” Lapis interrupted, turning to her with a very serious expression on her face. “Where else do you have to go?”

“Well, I suppose I could go back to Steven’s and live in his bathroom again…” she mused, tapping a finger to her chin, “but it wasn’t very comfortable in there and I’m not sure I’d find terribly much to do…Pearl did mention that their ‘washing machine’ needed ‘tune-ups’ but it sounded rather dull…” She trailed off when she realized Lazuli had meant the question to be rhetorical. Her own face colored with a blush. 

Thankfully, Lapis didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe she just didn't care. “Well, this place could use a few fix-ups.” Lapis commented, her eyes roaming over the hole in the wall and the tools strewn about from Peridot’s smaller-than-average-lake project of that afternoon.

Peridot’s face broke into a huge grin. “I…I guess I’ll be fixing up the barn for my next project.”

Lazuli only nodded curtly, seeming satisfied with that answer. 

Peridot moved further into the barn, tucking herself into the corner with the paint cans. “So, how do you want to do this Lazuli? You take one side and I’ll take the other…?”

To her surprise, Lapis flinched. “Actually, if you don’t mind…I think I’ll stay on the silo for now.”

Peridot blinked, taken aback slightly. “Oh…um…okay?” Lapis backed away swiftly, as if she were about to run. “Y…you don’t have to, you know!” Peridot called to her, making Lapis pause in her retreat. “I…I could stay outside or on the roof, wherever you’re most comfortable with me being!” She certainly didn’t relish the thought of being up high but if Lazuli was willing to let her stay, she was willing to be a little uncomfortable for her.

Peridot stepped closer, holding out a hand but Lapis only flinched again. “Peridot.” Her voice had sharpened again. Peridot paused, waiting. 

Lapis crossed the floor quickly, heading right for Peridot. For a moment, Peridot feared she had already ruined her chance of being allowed to stay at the barn. Darn her overly-cheerful and adorable groveling! 

But Lazuli instead approached a box along the wall reached behind it to extract the broken pieces of Peridot’s tape recorder. The two of them stared at the dented plastic and unspooled ribbon gathered into an incoherent mess in Lapis’ hands. The blue Gem held them out like a peace offering. “Let’s…let’s just take this slow, okay?”

For the first time all day, the question had no scorn in it. Peridot supposed, for the time being, they could survive together like this.

She took a deep breath. “Okay.” She held out her hands for the recorder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got a few more chapters planned around the recent episodes. I'm open to suggestions though! Either leave a comment or send me a message on Tumblr! http://hereidinathoreauwrites.tumblr.com/


End file.
